Screenshots are difficult, only coming to Xbox One next year

The Xbox One is a pretty great console, but I wish there was a way to share awesome screenshots online easily. The PS4 has that nailed down, and it seemed like the November Xbox One update would finally bring social screen sharing functionality to the console. Turns out that’s still going to take a while.

The November Xbox One update will still feature some upgrades to social media integration, but screenshot capture and sharing will only come next year. Xbox boss Phil Spencer explained that capturing a single frame from video isn’t as easy as one would expect – at least that’s what his engineers are telling him.

“It’s a little more technically challenging than I thought. Two weeks ago, they think they’ve found a good solution for screenshots. They’re working on it. They know people want it. The team has a path to getting it done, and now it’s just prioritizing.”

Have they tried the old and trusty method of hitting Ctrl+PrntScrn?

Microsoft has been really good with their updates, sending out significant upgrades nearly every month. December won’t be as big though, as Spencer describes the festive season as a little bit of downtime. That’s contributing to the delay as well.

I also think Microsoft is trying to figure out the best way to make screenshots easy to capture. The PS4 has the dedicated share button, so the Xbox One will need something just as fast and easy to use. Because right now, shouting at Kinect isn’t exactly viable.